Another year, another round robin …
Sickeningly smug greetings from picturesque Smuddland where robins perch on spades outside the door and every day the winter sun rises above a blissfully happy and successful home. So, …
Let us Bray!
2010 has been so eventful and so packed with achievement it’s hard to know where to begin the list of personal triumphs, but I know you’re all so keen to know everything so I will try! I hope I don’t leave anything out! If I do, I’ll put it in next year’s Xmas card…
Remember last year I told you how Old Smuddy’s colostomy bag gave out during Smuddette’s kazoo solo in the Asbo-Leavers’ Music and Movement Christmas Special? Oh, how we laughed!!! Thankfully, he’s got to grips with his new one which finally arrived at the end of March and since then we have had almost no leakage at all. We’ve treated ourselves to some lovely new lino throughout the house and I’d never choose anything but ‘wipe-clean’ again! The rest of Old Smuddy’s back teeth finally fell out after all those toffees last Christmas but the front three seem to be hanging in there. Just one more to go, then his grin will be symmetrical at least.
Great news about my glass eye, though! After enduring 3 years of what experts describe as “a baffling inverted-swivel situation” I’ve now been fitted with a lovely new one which stares almost straight ahead and is only a few shades off a total match. They’ve even blood-shotted the white so it’s virtually impossible to tell which one is the “Columbo”! I can’t tell you what a boost it’s been to my confidence and I’ve started attending the village rug-tatting circle once more. It’s lovely to be back among other overweight and partially-sighted friends and a steady gaze has helped me cope with my otherwise relentless ill-health. I’ve been at the doctor’s almost constantly this year and finally I’ve been told that I have a very weak intellect and a vivid imagination. Apparently this is an unhappy affliction and nothing can be done but at least it’s nice to have a proper diagnosis.
Smuddette has had a lovely year, not least because the police finally lifted her curfew and she’s been able to spend a lot more time with her friends, both outside the Off-Licence and on-line. She’s started yet another school and so far it hasn’t burnt down and she hasn’t been asked to leave! She’s gained her Grade 1 on the ukulele (third time lucky!) and has also been put on ‘The Watch List’ by the headmaster! Result! She seems to have a natural talent for creative writing, judging by the heap of letters explaining her absence that I was called to the school to verify! Academia aside, having yet another infected ring through her lip doesn’t seem to have put her off and she’s applied to do her Work Experience in Ted’s Tattoo & Piercing Parlour. She’s designed some lovely skull-based tattoos and will be happy even if all they let her do is apply the TCP. She’s a lovely girl and doesn’t plan to be pregnant for at least a year.
Smudd Junior is still really interested in Law and we’re always amazed to hear how much he knows about it! He’s forever being invited to attend the Magistrate’s Court and just recently he’s been selected for something called Community Service which I think is a bit like College but without the lectures. He’s also making quite a name for himself in the field of art; Old Smuddy and I very rarely drive anywhere without seeing Junior’s ‘Tag’ on some underpass, bridge or shop front! He must be very good with those aerosols now because he’s forever in the garage giving a car a re-spray! I do wish he’d leave the door open when he’s doing that but he’s adamant that he has to work with the door firmly locked and is only in there between three and four in the morning (something to do with his creative flow he says!). I’ve never seen any of his ‘spray-jobs’ either because it seems that the cars’ owners can only collect them before 6.00am and of course I’m in the middle of my beauty-sleep by then! For the sake of his lungs if nothing else, I’m glad he’s persisting with his market-garden venture in a few of the Nissan huts on the disused airfield just down the road. He’s seen a gap in the ‘tall, five-pronged-leaf lettuce’ market and I’m with him all the way! “It’s Hydroponics, Mum”, he said to me only last week, “It’s Hydro-bloomin-ponics and it’s my ticket outta here.” His business must be going so well he’s started bringing some of his exotic, tall lettuce plants home and putting them in a specially-lit room. Ultra-violet light seems to be the key and hermetically-sealed doors are vital. He’s always been very good with science and biology and the like and now it seems he has a business head on his shoulders as well! Mustn’t ‘crow’, though, must I? Gets right up people’s noses, doesn’t it???!!!
Ah well, I must away and finish hand-making all my crystallised cherries for my sugar-crafted festive cake!
Wishing you all an envious Christmas and a thoroughly-trumped New Year,
Your friends (although we haven’t actually seen each other for the last 27 years) and competitors,
Gloria, Old Smuddy, Junior and Smuddette
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